Stability?

Sept. 28. We've had a few good days. A few good days! It's startling to say. And although we've sworn off being superstitious, I have to say, I don't like saying that.

Last week, both twins were moved out of the critical unit and to what's known as "intermediate care." Technically, the equipment in this area is the same as what the girls had in critical; but they have less minute to minute attention. Each nurse in intermediate care tends to three babies, while in critical, they watch over two, or less.

There's less privacy in intermediate care. The isolettes are positioned along a wall, not in separate rooms. For Jenny to hold one of the girls, she has to drawn a curtain along a U-shaped track embedded in the ceiling. Even then, it doesn't feel that private. Sitting there, you can easily hear the conversations of the couple next to you or across the pod.

But no matter. They didn't stay here long at all. After three days, they were shipped off to the "C" unit, where they'll likely be for the next four weeks, or until they head home. Until they head home! The very notion makes me squirm. Really? That soon? But what am I saying? That soon. It will be almost 2.5 months by then.

The C room is lousy, in my opinion. The machines feel older, smaller, cruder, less reliable. I get the impression that we're sort of placed in the hallway. The girls are still in their isolettes, but they're sort of jammed along a wall, and the room feels like an add on to the main "pod" area. There are no windows in the space, and there's alot of foot traffic, nurses scurrying here and there. Just across the pod is the main entrance to the "term" baby nursery. Lots of activities there. Lots of fat babies, which used to make us envious.

At noon today I walked in and Luna was being fed by a bottle. Breast milk. The nurse was holding her head in her blue Latex fingers, and holding a nipple attached to a large plastic syringe in her other fingers. Luna, wide-eyed, was gurgling down the milk, the nipple popping out of her lips sometimes, glossy with milk. Luna's lips were dripping with the creamy stuff. Every few seconds, the nurse would gently press the syringe down a notch. I could see Luna's tiny swallowing in her thin neck. She was taking it in. She was swallowing it. Luna was drinking. I had not seen that until that moment.

Stella had done the same earlier, and would do it again later, but I wasn't there to witness it, just Jenny.

Seeing Luna drink was extraordinary, encouraging. Here was a normal thing, here was something simple and beautiful and more like what you'd expect.

A good day. Here's hoping there are more to come.

Luna was awake, vivid, receptive. When the feeding was done, she pawed around the air and complained. She wanted more. She wanted to feed again.

There are moments like these that will define the tenor of my life, I'm sure of it. Jenny said recently, "I was one person before the twins were born, and now I am a different one." I don't doubt that about her. I see it in her. I see the changes. They're good.

As for myself, I'm not sure. I do not want to say until the journey is done; and who is to say when that journey will be done? You get these docs in here saying, 'We'll know how healthy they are when they're eight.' So what do I think? The only rational thing to say is, 'I don't know.' I know that I love them, as Jenny does, but I do not know what meter I am judging my experience by. In the end I think that is the only thing I can do that is honest, for myself. I will take this day by day and hold tight and make the best calls, and maybe in all that, I'll discover what success means for me, for us, for the girls, for this life.

I can say this assuredly, though. We've been lucky so far. Damn lucky. We've gotten help from family, and we've gotten tremendous support from friends and colleagues. My old buds have been critical in their support, and we've been showered with generosity from the folks at the Garden, which is wonderful.

The only thing that is getting us through this experience emotionally is us, Jenny & me. There can be no doubt that this experience has taken a piece out of both of us, and that something is left behind (our youth?) but that is all right. You either endure and learn or you do not. We do, we learn, and we have grown closer because of it, I'm sure. As in all love, that can change, but I think something fundamental has been sealed tighter, and I like that feeling. I am proud of Jenny every time she comes home from the hospital,and I know she has been holding those twins for six hours straight. How to be a mom when you can't bring your kids home at night? How to endure that? I can't speak for her. But I know she is doing all she can do.

I am not a religious person. In the times of greatest worry -- and these may come yet -- I don't find myself reaching out to some supernatural being or god. I believe in love and kindness, and for lack of a better term, careful thinking. It's sounds silly, I know, but that's what I do. A kind of strength kicks in when it has to, and it's all a big mental effort (and who knows, I may wake up screaming in the middle of the night years from now!) And I believe in Jenny, of course, and what we have, and I think we can make it through anything.

Tomorrow night is Tallulah's talent show auditions. Jenny spent the late evening hours making a "sun" outfit because Tallulah is going to sing a solo piece, 'You are my sunshine.' Tallulah, who has probably taken all of this the hardest ('Why is mom at the hospital again? Is Mom okay?), will spend the afternoon with Mom, on a stage in a cafeteria in an elementary school, in a brilliant yellow costume, belting out her little song. Good days, indeed.